About

Throughout the ages I have been known by many names. The one name I have kept throughout the millenia is one that I found simple, elegant, and powerful.

My name is Atreides, and I am the Wolf King.

I was born around 5000 years ago on the eastern tip of Somalia, the "Horn of Africa". My earliest memory is my nomad travels with the Merimde and Badarian People through Egypt. There I was taught the ancient magical and mystical arts. Animal possession, control over the winds and waters and fires and earths, these were
part of my training. With my preborn gifts, which I would later learn more about, these lessons came easily, and I was soon tribe mystic in many clans. As my fellows grew and died, however, I realized something shocking: I was not aging...

I was banished and driven from the tribelands by mobs weilding knives and hurling rocks, for they believed me to be a demon. I never traveled with the nomads again....

When I left, I traveled northeast to what is today known as Iraq, though in those times it was known as Mesopotamia. To this day it is known as the "Cradle of Civilization"...

The Uruk period of Mesopotamia(4000-3100BC), marked my early life amongst the Sumerians and Akkadians that lived there. I fostered the growth of many villages, of urban lifestyle, writing, art, and even government. During this time is when I learned of shapeshifting from studying old legends taught to me by the oldtime Nomads. My different forms, most of which were animalistic or element-based, placed me upon a pedestal in Mesopotamian culture. I was revered as a god, and my other forms were seen as demi-gods as well. My ego grew immensely during this time, and I regret much of what I did in those times... I went by many names then:

Sin (in Sumerian, "Nanna or Suen"), the God of the moon.
Shamash (in Sumerian "Utu"), the sun God.
Ashur, sky god of Assyria at Assur.
Ninlil or Nillina, goddess of air and the south wind(as my shapeshifting was genderless, I was sometimes seen as a goddess as well.)
Inanna, the goddess of love and war.
Marduk, originally Ea's son and god of light, the main god of Aya, consort of Shamash.(later referenced in the bible as "Merodach", Mordechai was named after me).
Ninurta, lord of temples.

My favorite was Enki (in old Sumerian, "Ea"), patron god of the city of Eridu.

Eridu. A city I myself built over the course of 3000 years. Needless to say, I had much time on my hands... It was a city carved out of a mountain, far from the lands of Mesopotamia. I spent so long building it that my presence in Mesopotamia would have been all but forgotten, save for my rare visits to reward the people for their faith in me, as well as punish the blasphemers....with death.

This city was built by my hand alone, out of the mountain that the bible knows as Mount Sinai. Eridu, what I called the City of Angels... A desolate place where I, a god, lived alone...

Few Meso-Assyrians visited that place. Only the sanctified and truly faithful ever saw its majesty before I destroyed it in . Today the city has all but vanished, except a small monastery I would, centuries later in, give to a Saint Gallic by the name of Aetheria, a woman who I made the mistake of falling in love with. A woman that I made the journey of a lifetime with, to visit what the bible knows as the "Holy Land"... but that's another story, for another time. My monastery was named after her, the Monastery of Aetheria, though it was later changed by the civilized world to "St. Catherines Monastery", after another woman, a christina martyr.

I stayed with the Mesopotamians until just a few decades before the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. That year, the Neo-Babylonian Empire that ruled Mesopotamia, fell to Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, during the Battle of Opis.

The Persian Empire had begun.

In the time of the Achaemenid(Persian) Empire, when I led the gray wolves over the sand dunes of Persia, many travelers reported sightings of me. Much werewolf folklore comes from those times, between the years of 550–330 BCE. I came to be called "The Wolf King" by those who witnessed my utter control over the lupines. Little did they know that my power extended much further...

I stayed in the desert with the wolves for the next 600 years... My power grew and strengthened over that time immensely, and so did the Ancient Egyptian culture that surrounded me.
New names were added to my long list of aliases, by those followers of the Egyptian faiths. My ego grew once again, and I returned to shapeshifting and performing "miracles" with my powers to gain notoriety. The gods Osiris, Anubis, and Horus are named after 3 of my favorite forms. Many other shapes and transformations were named as well, including Hathor, Sekhmet, Geb, Seth, Isis, Thoth, Ma'at, Bastet, and most importantly, Amun' Ra. My transformations grew beyond animalistic forms to god-like appearances and terrifying creatures and monsters, to subdue and control the growing population of Egyptians, more and more of whom were becoming scholars and skeptics. The religious ways were being left behind and I didn't like it. I lost that battle though, and on 400AD, I disappeared from Egypt. My reign as god faded into myths and legends, and I traveled eastward in the form of the wolf that had been my companion for so long...

===

I went East and didn't stop until I hit the coast. Between 1271-1368, I roamed the countryside of present day China and Bhutan. I spent many years exploring the land, and my movements over the rocks and rivers were reminiscent of their deities. Those few asian monks and such who saw fleeting glimpses of me, would come to respect and fear me, and so I was christened with a new title by the leaders of the land: "Druk Gyalpo" or "The Dragon King". Again I was seen as something supernatural, something not of this earth... I did not want that title again, so I disappeared. I knew my ego could not be allowed to grow as it had in the past, or the world could fall...

And so, though my time in Asia had been short, I left.

I traveled again, this time in the form of a simple nomad. It was reminiscent of my childhood days in Somalia, and I practiced their old Dahalo language daily, though I knew hundreds of languages by that point. I went to the coast where I took the form of a falcon, and traveled over the Atlantic over the course of 6 months. I went to what is today known as Canada, and traveled south to the undiscovered Americas. As I was travelling, something told me to make this pilgrimage, to travel over the seas. Something told me there was something beyond all that water... and so it was that I began my life among the Native Americans, only 200 years before Columbus would land and take the land from them.

And destroy it.

I lived with the Inca until 1536, when Atahualpa, the last true Incan Emperor, was executed. Francisco Pizarro installed his brother Manco Inca Yupanqui, as emperor against the wishes of the people. He allied himself with the Spanish enemies, and I fled, not wanting to be captured by the Spaniards, to form a small resistance. The fake emperors son, Tupac Amaru, was among those who fought with me. We became good friends, and his name stands the test of time for how he became a martyr. I recall him riding a mule with hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck. There were great crowds. He was surrounded by hundreds of guards with lances. In front of the main cathedral in the central square of Cuzco, the last Incan city, a black-draped scaffold had been erected. Almost 20,000 Incans were present to see it, screaming and shouting for his release. Surrounded by guns...

I witnessed Tupac Amaru's last words:

"Mother Earth, witness how my enemies shed my blood."


And I remember, even before he was hung, that I could not interfere. This world had moved beyond the time of gods, and if I stepped in now, things would only have gotten worse in the future.

And so it was that I silently stood by and watched my friend die...

After the funeral, I left. I travelled north until I hit the neverending Boreal Forest of present-day Canada. I have been there ever since, roaming the trees as a sprite. My powers have intensified as well. I learned the ancient ability of flight, and now I glide through the treetops as would a ghost.

I never left the forest again, until recently.

I had heard of a town ravaged by odd fuzzy demons and garden statues coming to life. I'd never heard of such a thing. Possibly this could give me a clue as to my origins?....

So now I travel alone, fighting these demons, in search of the answer to where this magic comes from, and with the hope that I can find my place in this world.

As for my name... well, I've chosen this name long ago as a permanent name. It is a name that describes where I come from, a name that has sustained me since my Nomad travels. It is a greek name, oddly enough. A name that shows my roots, and how far back before time they go..

My name is Atreides. And as most of my life has been spent among the sands of Somalia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Eridu, I have taken on the title of King. I am the man-beast.

I am Atreides, and I am the Wolf King.